tirsdag 14. desember 2010

Roger Ballen currently has a retrospective exhibition at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo (www.stenersen.museum.no).
The
exhibition will be on view till the 23rd of January, and consists of
photographs from the 'Boarding House' series, the 'Outland' series, the
'Shadow Chamber' series. A film - and also 4 images from his most recent
body of work, 'The Asylum' are also presented in the show.... enjoy...

Roger Ballen currently has a retrospective exhibition at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo (www.stenersen.museum.no).
The
exhibition will be on view till the 23rd of January, and consists of
photographs from the 'Boarding House' series, the 'Outland' series, the
'Shadow Chamber' series. A film - and also 4 images from his most recent
body of work, 'The Asylum' are also presented in the show.... enjoy...

Roger
Ballen (1950), was born in New York City and has lived and worked in
Johannesburg, South Africa, for 30 years. His interest in photography
dates to when his mother worked as a photo editor with Magnum Photos in
New York, and teenager Ballen befriended the likes of Henri
Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, and Elliott Erwitt.

For
many years Ballen worked as a geologist while documenting the small
villages of rural South Africa and their isolated inhabitants. Over the
past few years Ballen has had well over 100 exhibitions worldwide,
including solo shows at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, New York’s
Gagosian Gallery, and Toronto’s Clint Roenisch Gallery. Ballens work
is included in some 30 different museum collections.

Boarding
House shows an imaginary space of transient residence, of coming and
goings, of people sheltering in a strange place they are using for their
immediate survival, furnished with objects that are necessarily for an
elementary existence as well as mysterious items whose significance is
impossible to discern. In the theme of his other photography projects,
Boarding House emphasizes the absence of human presence and shows
obscured bodies, animals and hand-drawn faces whose minimal identifying
characteristics initiate an immediate, visceral response. “It is
difficult to explain this place,” Ballen said, “except that I think it
exists in some way or another in most people’s mind.”

In
reviewing Ballen’s work , American Photo noted his “rich, penetrating
vision” and that he has “developed a style of image-making that is
firmly rooted in the documentary tradition of the great mid-century
storytellers.” Art in America called his photographs “Stark, visceral
images that hark back to vintage Walker Evans and also have some of the
surreal strangeness of Diane Arbus’s portraits of social misfits.”

ABOUT US

Darkrooms in Northern Light is a new photoblog from Norway featuring a group of carefully selected photographers. Based on widely differing experiences and seen from a range of perspectives, the works presented here are permeated by the distinctly individual style of each of these contributors. Their photographic practices stand out from the dominant mainstream approaches to photography, challenging the viewers on many levels. Although pursuing different styles and topic matters, they all share a firm dedication to capturing the moment and exploring the full range of human emotions. Which is perhaps why their work often strikes a universal chord, touching viewers on a deep human level.